Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (50 page)

Poddar’s support to the Ram Rajya Parishad was not confined to the pages of
Kalyan.
He and Goyandka actively campaigned for the party. In Calcutta, the duo had attended public meetings in support of the Parishad. Poddar was particularly strident in his speeches: ‘It is a sin like cow slaughter to put the Congress and the supporters of Mr Nehru into power again by supporting them in the coming general elections . . . It is very regrettable that today the followers of Mahatma Gandhi, who revered the cow even more than Swaraj, are encouraging cow slaughter.’
¹⁰⁹

In his
Kalyan
article, Poddar also discussed the scene in Allahabad where a battle royale was being waged between Jawaharlal Nehru and Prabhudatt Brahmachari. The latter had agreed to join the fray at the behest of Golwalkar and Rajendra Singh of the RSS.
¹¹⁰
Brahmachari was not the sole sadhu to join the electoral fray in defence of cow protection and against the Hindu Code Bill. Madhav Acharya stood as an independent candidate from Karnal against Subhadra Joshi of the Congress.

Prabhudatt Brahmachari was contesting the elections, Poddar explained, on the issue of Hindu Code Bill, and therefore all those opposed to the bill should support him. Poddar also made it clear that Brahmachari would quit the fray if Nehru promised to withdraw the Hindu Code Bill. Poddar did not spare Ambedkar either, asking voters to wholeheartedly oppose the Dalit leader who was contesting as a candidate of his Scheduled Castes Federation (later the Republican Party) from one of the two constituencies of Bombay City North (it was a double-member constituency with one seat in the reserved category), and actively campaigning in favour of the Hindu Code Bill.
¹¹¹

After indulging wholesale in politics and canvassing in favour of the Ram Rajya Parishad, Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh, Poddar took care to reiterate that he was not against specific individuals and political parties. However, the results were disappointing for him, as the Congress swept the polls. Though for Poddar it would have come as some relief that Ambedkar lost to Congress’s Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, by just 15,000 votes. Overall, the Ram Rajya Parishad, Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh won three seats each.

By the time of the 1967 general election, the Congress hegemony was under threat. The grand old party posted one of its worst performances, winning only 283 seats out of the 516 it contested. In the state elections, three big states of the Hindi heartland, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, saw the formation of Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments—an unlikely coalition of the Jana Sangh, Samyukta Socialist Party, communists and Congress rebels—signalling that Congress was no longer invincible.

Reviewing the elections, Poddar again lamented the dominance of money power in the electoral process, something he alleged had been introduced by the Congress.
¹¹²
This trend was viewed by Poddar as a serious challenge to the very basis of democracy, as the funding of politicians by businessmen was nothing but an investment for future return. Poddar also cited widespread violence like stone pelting and arson at polling stations during the election, including attacks on Indira Gandhi during her campaign in Bhubaneswar in 1967 and on Madhu Limaye, as being indicative of a new India that had derailed from the path of non-violence and forgotten Gandhi’s ahimsa.

Though happy about the diminishing stature of the Congress, Poddar alleged that the 1967 parliamentary elections had not been free and fair.
¹¹³
In an indirect reference to the formation of SVD governments in Bihar, UP and MP made possible through defections and dissensions, Poddar highlighted the new subculture of money power being used to lure MLAs to defect. He doubted that governments with such dubious foundations would have the ability to do any public good. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi, Poddar said it would have been beneficial if mutually opposed governments or parties had placed Gandhi’s ideals as their goal instead of putting all their energies, resources and thought into pulling down each other. ‘Post-Independence there has been a rise in corruption, immorality, mutual antagonism, violence and counter-violence.’

The 1967 general election was the last on which Poddar commented at length, though there was no participation this time unlike in 1951– 52, when Gita Press and all the Hindu nationalist groups had participated in an enthusiastic campaign in favour of their agenda to protect cows, junk the Hindu Code Bill and undo Partition. By the 1971 general election, the involvement of an ailing Poddar was limited to issuing an appeal on behalf of media baron Ramnath Goenka who was contesting on a Jana Sangh ticket from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. As we have seen, Goenka won.

The steady spread of communist ideology in the first half of the twentieth century was considered by Gita Press a serious challenge not only to the idea of a hegemonic Hindu–Hindi rule but to private enterprise and profit-making—of great significance to its Marwari patrons. Therefore, one finds
Kalyan
devoting a disproportionately large amount of space to debunking communism and its ideal of a society devoid of religion, based on equality.

The Communist Party of India, established in Tashkent (then in the USSR, now the capital of Uzbekistan) on 17 October 1920, was in its formative years when Gita Press was established. Organized labour and peasant movements were then sporadic in nature, confined mainly to the new centres of industrial production like Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Gita Press’s initial fear of the communist ideology was similar to that of the colonial government. In both cases it was ‘grossly exaggerated’
¹¹⁴
and emanated from the worldwide impact of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Union became a hated and feared alien force, and the overactive home department of British India saw anyone who resisted the Empire—from tall nationalist leaders like Gandhi and C.R. Das to obscure leaders of the peasant movement in the United Provinces and Mewar—as a Bolshevik. And for a religious publishing house like Gita Press, any ideology that advocated a religion- free society was a serious threat.

In 1928, news of intense anti-religious propaganda in the USSR and Germany caused great apprehension among the orthodox Hindu set.
Kalyan
was among the early publications to warn its readers of the disastrous consequences of communism in a country like India where religion ‘is a way of life and the centre of existence’
.
¹¹⁵
Sadanand, the writer of the
Kalyan
article, said any attempt to exterminate religion from the life of a nation would mean extermination of the concepts of community and fraternity, the two key ingredients of nationalism. He said mutual jealousy, pride, obstinacy, blind faith and selfishness among followers of different religions had already created enough division within Indian society.

At the end of 1928, when news of a mammoth anti-God meeting in Moscow attended by 700 delegates came in,
Kalyan
got worked up again. Though the resolutions passed at the meeting were not known, the unsigned article said the theme of the meeting—anti-God—was self-explanatory: ‘There cannot be a worse movement than this. Any one who is sympathetic to it is committing a great mistake. Whatever the outward manifestation of religion, and even if it needs to be reformed, attacking the supreme power of God is nothing but a reflection of the overall decline of the human race. Equality and world peace, the two main goals of the meeting, cannot be achieved through this conclave. In fact, it would be like chasing a mirage that would end only in chaos, pain and restlessness.’
¹¹⁶

The biggest cause for worry for Gita Press was the birth of such ‘polluted thought’ in India, where people had unflinching faith in God. Expressing regret that educated and cultured people wrote articles and organized lectures questioning the existence of God, the
Kalyan
article urged people to ‘refrain from either speaking against God or listening to any criticism’
.

Gita Press realized the need to provide an alternative to the new ideology, something that would not threaten the tenets of sanatan Hindu dharma yet celebrate the concept of equality. This alternative was discovered in the Bhagavadgita—an Indian version of communism, divinely ordained.

A ready reckoner of the similarities and differences between the Indian and Russian versions of communism was prepared.
¹¹⁷
While Indian communism was based on the principle of equality as defined by the Supreme Being, the Russian version had economic equality at its core. To follow Indian communism, one had merely to purify the mind, while only fear of the authorities forced Russians to become communists.

The comparison took an even more bizarre turn when it came to listing the forces behind the ancient godly Indian communism and the modern godless Russian communism. On the Indian side it was a crowded list including Arjun, Yudhishthir, Vidhur, Vyas, Narada, Tulsidas, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Mirabai, Guru Nanak, Sant Tukaram, Ramdas, Raidas, Sant Gyaneshwar, Tiruvalluvar, Narsi Mehta and others. How and why these mythological and real characters—epic heroes, poets, seers and religious gurus—were chosen as the founding fathers of Indian communism is not known, but the list was certainly weightier compared to the three masterminds of Russian communism: Lenin, Trotsky and later Stalin.

Bhakti was cited as a necessary condition to internalize Indian communism, unlike the Russian one that opposed religion and God yet encouraged building of statues of Karl Marx and Lenin. When talking of the relative impact of the two communisms, the Indian version was seen to make a man compassionate towards all living beings, while Russian communism was limited to creating equality among human beings—only the hard-working ones. Besides, the stress on family life and respect for parents was integral to Indian communism unlike in Russia where,
Kalyan
said, thousands of children were orphans and clueless about their parents.

Two similarities were noted between Indian and Russian communisms. The first would delight even the most serious of political theorists: it said that Lord Krishna, the originator of Indian communism, dallied with gopis—hard-working milkmaids—just as the fathers of Russian communism were involved with humble peasants and workers. The second similarity was more to the point: that both versions were aimed at the betterment of the poor and the downtrodden.

By the time
Kalyan
’s
Ishwar Ank
was planned in 1932, communism had made further inroads into Europe, while the Communist Party of India had begun taking firm root. Laxman Narayan Garde, Poddar’s associate in
Kalyan
and a scholar of some repute, was given the task of putting the modern theory of atheism into perspective.
¹¹⁸
Through a detailed analysis of historical materialism, Garde argued that atheism was necessary in the context in which communism was born. However, he stated, one of the principles of material philosophy is that change is inevitable. Going by this principle, the state of communists as non- believers would change, and the needs of society would change as well, putting an end to atheism.

Kalyan
kept up the attack on communism at regular intervals
.
The spread of communist ideology even among a section of the Congress was seen as contributing to the political flux of the 1940s as well creating the bogey of inequality in Muslim minds.
¹¹⁹
Besides, communism’s stress on gender equality and the individual spirit threatened the shastric concept of the Indian woman’s sphere being limited to the four walls of her father’s, husband’s or son’s home.

A two-part article by Charu Chandra Mitra argued that the basic mantra of communism—from each according to his ability, to each according to his need—was already practised in India through the joint family system.
¹²⁰
While the USSR was divided into communes, in India every joint family was a commune. However, in the Indian system, he said, the freedom of an individual was not diminished, unlike in the Soviet system.

Pitching the Gita as a counter to communism became a favoured practice among Hindu nationalists. Kailash Nath Katju wrote for the
Hind
u Sanskriti Ank
lamenting the mental slavery of Indians to modern concepts, in the process discarding ancient Indian traditions.
¹²¹
For Katju it was nothing but ignorance to think that the concept of equality was a modern one; such a concept had been delineated in the Gita and seriously followed by our forefathers. Katju argued: ‘These days there is a view that the nation can make maximum progress if there is an end to profiteering/profit from business and social prestige based on economic worth. It is also believed if there is no right to property and profit from property, a classless society would be formed without any rich or poor. This is considered a new ideology. But it is already a part of our ancient pedagogy. Our system teaches sacrifice, not of karma, but of fruits of karma.’

Katju contended that the Gita taught that renunciation would not bear any fruit. Instead, he argued, it stressed activity to maintain the dignity of life. ‘Such a confluence of the spiritual and the physical cannot be found in any religious or secular literature.’ In the overall analysis, Katju argued, minus the component of class struggle and enmity, communism was another name for the Gita.

Dismissing communism’s ideal of a classless society, an article by Nardev Shastri defended the varna system of Hindus in which the four castes carried out their pre-ordained duties. He believed the slogan ‘workers of the world unite’ from the
Communist Manifesto
, the 1848 text by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, was at the cost of the other classes. On the other hand, the Indian social structure had a deep- seated relationship with spiritualism that had helped it to survive through the long history of slavery, colonial rule and injustices. ‘Now that the British rule is over, if India acts independently and preserves its culture it will once again show the way to the world.’
¹²²